“Wow.” Amber was almost hyperventilating as I set the three of us down on the curb outside her house. “That was hella tight!”
Nicole laughed and tilted her head to the side as she looked at Amber. “Flying’s definitely near the top of the list of coolest things I’ve ever done.”
“Do you think...” She hesitated as she looked at me. “Could you teach me how to do that?”
“I’m hoping to teach you a lot more than just that.” I raised my eyebrows as I met her gaze. “But we’re going to have a two-day road trip to go over everything. We really need to get going now, though.”
“Wouldn’t it be faster to just fly?” she asked.
“Not by much. And after a few hours, it would really start to wear on me.”
She shrugged. “Makes sense. I’ll be back in a sec.”
“Hella tight?” Nicole whispered at me as Amber disappeared into the house.
“She’s a teenager.”
“From San Francisco?”
“Oh stop.” I laughed despite myself and pushed her away.
“I can’t wait for us to meet teenage-you.” She smiled deviously. “You’re way more of a nerd than mom.”
I pursed my lips and watched as Amber backed her car out of the driveway. Somehow, seeing a teenage version of myself wasn’t what I was most anxious about.
25
IT TOOK JUST UNDER a day and a half to drive from Los Angeles to Chicago. Nicole and I took turns driving, and even though Amber legally needed an adult in the car to drive, we had her drive some of the trip as well. If any of us were pulled over, none of our licenses would work, so we just made sure to drive within the speed limit.
Amber left a note for her parents explaining something of what she was doing, but from what I knew of her parents, I knew they would be furious with her. I didn’t know how she was going to face them once all of this was over, but when I brought up that question to her, she just shrugged.
“I’m probably going to be grounded for the rest of the summer.” She kept her eyes on the solitary lanes of highway stretched out ahead of us. “But this saving-the-world thing is more important than my free time, right?”
I sighed and glanced out at the sparse outline of monolithic rock which stretched up a hundred feet from either side of the highway we were on. “You mind if we pull over? I have to take a leak.”
“Next rest stop’s in a few miles.”
I shook my head. “I’m not making it that far.”
Amber pulled us off onto the shoulder at the next pullout, and I hopped out of the car with a few napkins in hand and jogged over to some nearby bushes to squat down and relieve myself. I was acutely aware of how uncomfortable it now was to do something that before had been so simple, but it couldn’t be helped. My bladder seemed to be on a two-hour timer for the past two months. My only hope was that Amber wouldn’t notice, or wouldn’t comment on it if she did. I didn’t want to have to explain to her how, in addition to everything else, I was also pregnant.
“Better?” she called to me through the open door as I came back into view.
“Much.”
I got back into the front seat and closed my door. I glanced behind me at Nicole, who was sprawled out asleep across the backseat. Luckily, Amber had grabbed some supplies for our trip on her way out of the house. Among other things, she had grabbed a few extra blankets, as Nicole was now curled up under one of them. I was just grateful she had evidently noticed the cuts on my face and arms. Within the first few minutes of our trip, she gave me some salve her father had nabbed from his company which healed my injuries in minutes.
“The stars out here are really something, aren’t they?” Amber leaned a bit over the steering wheel to look up out of the windshield after she had put the car back into first and we started rolling down the road once again.
“Yeah.” I watched the way she broke into a grin as she peered up into the blackened sky and had to fight the urge to smile myself. “There’s a car pulled onto the center median about six miles ahead. Probably a cop. Just so you’re aware.”
“You can see that?”
“Sense it. Metal has a particular density signature. It’s kind of a purple between—”
“Plum and grape. Yeah.” She glanced over at me.
“Those are fruits, not colors.” I raised an eyebrow, then frowned. “But yeah.”
“You can sense out to six miles? And your eyes don’t glow when you use your sense?”
“Long story, kid. My powers got amplified a few months ago.” I sighed and consigned myself to an explanation that would satisfy her curiosity. “That’s why my eyes stay the same when I use my grav-sense. I can’t turn it off, as a matter of fact. That was the same accident that caused me to look, well...”
“Twenty-five years younger?”
“Yeah. There really is nothing out here, is there?” I strained to look out at the inky blackness around us, but with only the stars for light, I couldn’t make anything out.
“It’s great, isn’t it?”
“Sure.” I sighed.
She furrowed her brow, then glanced at me and bit her lower lip. “Who are you?”
“What do you mean?” I looked at her, my mind trying to work through what she meant. “I already told you. I’m you.”
“No.” She didn’t take her eyes off the road, but just the tone of her voice and the conviction there was enough to make my heart skip a beat. “You know a lot about me. You know my mannerisms and my history, and you’re doing a pretty good imitation of me. It almost had me fooled. I’m sure you’re close to me. But you aren’t me. Who are you?”
“Would you accept that I can’t tell you?”
“Not buying it.” She looked pointedly toward the backseat. “I already know one of you is my future daughter. What I can’t make sense of is how you fit into all of this.”
I remained silent and pushed myself lower in my seat.
She frowned over at me. “You’re new to that body, aren’t you?”
“What?” I sputtered and bolted up straight. “Why would you say something like that?”
“You really are, aren’t you?” She looked awestruck, though she kept her eyes on the road ahead. “That’s it. Were you a man before?”
“What makes you think that?” I pressed.
“You’re what, forty years old?” She snuck a glance at me, and I could see how unnerved she looked at her discovery. “And sitting in a skirt with your legs splayed out like that? No way you grew up wearing skirts. Plus, the way you talk? Come on. Every girl knows plum is a color. Honestly, I’m kind of surprised I didn’t see it before.
“Wow. So, you used to be a man? How did you end up... well, looking like me?”
“You really aren’t going to let this go, are you?” I studied her. “No. Of course you aren’t, Ambs. You never can.”
“Ambs?” She raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you call me?”
“Only when I’m really annoyed. Or when we’re... well, no. I shouldn’t mention that.”
“What?” She looked confused, then squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “Well, I’m about to put my life on the line for you two. I have to know. Who are you?”
“I...” I paused, wondering how much was safe to reveal. I glanced back at Nicole again, who was still sound asleep, as I tried to think through what answer I could give her.
In the few seconds of silence before I had to say something, I thought back on everything that had happened in the past eight hours since Nicole and I had come out of the wormhole into the past. I was certain Amber would carry the memories of this moment forward with her into my timeline, just like the memories I already had of the mind smith, which technically hadn’t happened yet. Did that mean things would work exactly how I remembered them happening, no matter what I did? If that were true, would any of the choices I could make in that moment even matter?
I shook myself, the beginning of a headache creeping across my forehead. Maybe the reality o
f time travel meant my future choices were already predetermined, but I refused to accept that. If I was wrong, it meant I was unwittingly stuck in a universe where choice was an illusion. If I was right, I still had the choice to determine my own destiny. I chose to believe my choices had the power to change the future. “You know what? What the hell. I’m pretty sure you’ll put it all together when you see him tomorrow anyway.”
“Him?”
“The man you saw in that family photo on Nicole’s phone?”
“That was my husband, wasn’t it?” she whispered. “Is that... are we going to save him?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “Also? He’s me.”
Amber was silent for about a minute after my pronouncement. I tried not to wince each time she opened her mouth to speak, but every time she did open her mouth, she would pause, and I could see the gears in her head working furiously to come up with an appropriate question. Finally, she just looked at me with one word.
“How?”
“We swapped bodies. A few months ago. You were right—all of this is really, really new to me.” I gestured down at the rest of me for emphasis.
“So... in the future, I end up in a man’s body?”
“Yes.”
“In your body?” I nodded. “Weird.”
“Just... weird?”
“Well, that’s not the first word that came to mind.” She shivered.
Of all the things we could have ended up talking about, I found myself being peppered with questions from her about what life was like being a man, and comparing that to how I now experienced life as a woman.
“Don’t get me wrong.” I frowned and drummed my fingers on the steering wheel as I thought how to best collect my thoughts from her latest question. I had just come back to the car from another pit stop, and we had decided to swap drivers. Nicole was still blissfully asleep in the back seat. “It’s a night and day difference. Everything, and I mean, everything, is fundamentally different when you’re a man versus when you’re a woman. It kind of makes sense, if you think about it. It’s probably one of the most basic things that we use to define who we are, and anyone saying anything different is out of touch with reality.”
“Do... do things change between us?” She looked over at me, and I could see a touch of fear reflected in her eyes from the orange glow of the streetlight shining high above us. “I mean, after the swap?”
I chuckled. “How could things not change with something as big as that?”
“Do we make it through that?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Of course we made it through. That’s kind of the point of marriage, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“Look.” I sighed as I turned the keys in the ignition and then backed the car out of our parking spot. “I hate to be the one to break it to you, but everything you’ve seen in all those chick flicks that I know for a fact you love are way off about relationships, and love, and marriage. Marriage isn’t really about love.”
“Of course it is.”
“No, it’s not. I mean, you need love for any relationship to work. But that’s just the starting point. Marriage isn’t just a relationship. It’s a contract. Marriage is a lot more about commitment and work than it is about love.”
“What?”
“Think of it this way. If marriage were only about love—that bubbly, romantic feeling you get when you’re around the other person—then why would you even need to get married in the first place?”
“Because you want that feeling to last forever?”
“But it’s not going to, not like that. It can’t. Life gets in the way, no matter what you do. Infatuation doesn’t last. Marriage does. It’s there exactly for those moments when those feelings get buried under the weight and stress of life.”
“So... being married to me is just stress for you?”
“Not at all. Life is stress. Our marriage, sometimes, is the only thing that gets me through it all.”
“I guess I never really thought about it like that.” She hesitated for a moment. “But... we do love each other, don’t we?”
“With everything we’ve got.”
“Hmm.”
I glanced her way to find she was leaning on her hand and watching me.
“What’s wrong?” I frowned.
“No, it’s nothing.” She sighed and stretched. “Okay. Different subject. I have to know. Is sex better as a man, or a woman?”
“Umm, Amber, I’m over twenty-four years older than you. You technically aren’t old enough to drive yet. I don’t know if it’s appropriate—”
“Oh, really?” Her tone made me glance her way.
“Oh no.” I groaned at recognizing a little too well the look she gave me. “Please, I didn’t mean to make you upset.”
“I’m not upset.” She crossed her arms over her chest. She looked even more indignant as I started laughing.
“I’m sorry.” I held up a hand, even as her eyes flashed dangerously. “ I just forgot that we used to do this. Nowadays, you don’t make me guess at why you’re upset. Well, not much, anyway. I think you finally got tired of me taking forever trying to guess.”
“Well, sorry.” She looked out her window. “I guess I’m just not there yet. Obviously.”
“That’s not what I meant, Ambs.” I sighed. “Look. I love you. I trust you. It’s just... all of this is really, really weird. I don’t want to make it any weirder by muddling up things that haven’t even happened yet. The simple fact is, I’m forty-years old, and you’re still just a child. I mean, you’re barely fifteen.”
“I’m just a child.” Her voice was even more dangerous than it had been seconds before. “Right. That’s why you came two decades into the past for my help. Because I’m just a child. People usually trust their lives to children.”
“Come on, Amber.” I tried to keep my tone patient, but I knew it was slipping. “I’m sorry, okay? You’re right. Obviously I don’t think of you like you’re a child. I wouldn’t have come here if that were true, and we both know it.
“Although, I have to say: you wearing all those butterfly clips in your hair isn’t helping your whole ‘not a child’ line of defense.” I reached out and held her hand to stop her as she moved to remove the clips from her hair, then gave her a gentle smile. “Keep them in. They look really cute on you.”
“Cute isn’t what I’m going for right now.” She pulled her hand free, and after pulling out her clips, she tossed her head back to let her hair fall down around her shoulders.
“Okay. Can we just pretend like I didn’t say that?”
“Sure thing.” She shrugged, a bit of her edge slipping away as she fixed me with an expression I couldn’t quite place. “But only if you mean that. I know I’m just fifteen. But that doesn’t mean you have to treat me like I’m stupid.”
I laughed, and she gave me another dirty look. “Trust me, Amber. I would never treat you like you’re stupid. I’m sorry. Really, I am. I’ve been talking down to you, and I shouldn’t be. We’re equals. Age is just a number. I’ll treat you that way from now on.”
“Okay.” She nodded, though she didn’t look convinced yet. “Prove it then. Answer my question. How does sex compare between being a man and being a woman?”
“Well, first off, how do you know if we’ve had sex?” I cocked an eyebrow.
“You have.” She rolled her eyes. “Come on. You said it’s been, what, four months, since you and I swapped bodies? You’ve had sex as a woman.”
“Actually, you’ll find after kids, the sex pretty much stops.” I raised an eyebrow and looked pointedly at Nicole in the backseat.
“Stop it. I know you have. I’m just... curious.” She shrugged. “Come on. Which side has it better?”
“You know, me admitting we’ve had sex since the swap would also mean that future-you has had sex as a man, right?”
“If you’re trying to weird me out so you won’t have to answer, it’s not going to work.”
“Fine.�
� I huffed. I took a moment to collect my thoughts, then took a deep breath. “This is going to sound like a cop-out, but it’s not better or worse. It’s different. It feels different. I mean, the end result’s the same, but the mechanics that get you there are completely different. Before, all I had to do was look at you for five seconds and I was ready to go. And it was always more focused. Simpler. Sex was always about getting to the end. Now, sex is a lot more about how you get there. Not just that you get there.”
“Fair enough.” She narrowed an eye. “But that still doesn’t answer my question.”
“Ugh, okay.” I rolled my eyes. “I think I liked sex better as a man, but that’s just because I’m more used to it that way. It’s kind of hard for me to admit, but sex now is probably better than before.”
“So, women have it better?”
“It’s not that.” I laughed. “Although, not having a refractory period is probably a step in the right direction. No, it’s just a completely different experience to have sex with someone who has been in your body. Trust me... you know how to make this body feel good.”
“That... would make sense,” she admitted.
“And, in case you were worried it’s one-sided, I actually had this conversation with your future-self a few weeks ago.” I gave her a devious grin. “Apparently I know a thing or two about what feels good as a man, because you agree with me. Our sex has been better since the swap.”
“Gross.” Amber stuck her tongue out.
“Well, you asked.” I stuck my tongue out too.
Amber lulled into silence, and I was unsurprised ten minutes later to look over and discover she had fallen asleep. With a sigh, I floated one of the extra blankets from the backseat and draped it over her, and she rolled over a second later to rest her head against the window, wrapping the blanket around herself in the process.
“Goodnight, sweetheart.”
Prime Identity Page 31
